Viewpoint information channel for illustrative volume rendering

This paper introduces a volume rendering framework based on the information channel constructed between the volumetric data set and a set of viewpoints. From this channel, the information associated to each voxel can be interpreted as an ambient occlusion value that allows to obtain illustrative volume visualizations. The use of the voxel information combined with the assignation of color to each viewpoint and non-photorealistic effects produces an enhanced visualization of the volume data set. Voxel information is also applied to modulate the transfer function and to select the most informative views.